Teachers face sack for promoting extremism after Trojan plot report

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Shahid Akmal, who was chairman of governors at Nansen Primary School, told an undercover reporter that white children were lazy

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One of the schools caught up in the 'Trojan' plotPA:Press Association

Nicola WoolcockEducation Correspondent

Last updated at 1:42PM, July 22 2014

Teachers who expose pupils to extremist speakers face being struck off without
right to appeal, the education secretary said today in response to a report
on the Trojan horse plot by radical Muslims to take over schools.

Peter Clarke, a former head of the anti-terrorist branch at Scotland Yard,
investigated the conspiracy at the request of Michael Gove, the former
education secretary. His report, published today, was described as
“shocking” by Mr Gove’s successor, Nicky Morgan, as she addressed MPs in the
Commons.

Mr Clarke found there had been co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action,
carried out by associated individuals, to

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The vicious, ruthless and personal nature of the campaign to oust head teachers who tried to oppose a hardline Islamist agenda at their schools is illustrated by the experiences of Balwant Bains (Nicola Woolcock writes).
Mr Bains, a Sikh, became head of Saltley School in September 2012 and almost immediately ran into problems when he refused to give a teaching job to the cousin of the chairman of governors. He endured a ten-month campaign of intimidation and bullying, being ordered by the chairman to "provide a justification for every decision that I had made".
Governors tried to have the school’s rating downgraded by Ofsted, and Mr Bains was accused of racism and Islamophobia because he excluded a Muslim boy who brought a knife into school. The governors overturned the exclusion.
Mr Bains repeatedly asked Birmingham city council to dissolve the governing body but officials said there was not enough evidence, despite admitting that he was not the only head teacher having such problems. It recommended that he quit and sign a compromise agreement.
Before he signed, the Trojan horse letter was published, saying that he was one of the heads forced from his school. The council had known about this letter, and therefore the alleged wider plot, for two months but it had not backed him.
Peter Clarke’s report on the plot said: "The terms of his supposedly confidential compromise agreement had clearly been broken before it was signed."